Edmonton Transit is aiming to boost ridership by almost 50 per cent in five years by improving service. The ETS Ridership Growth Strategy and Planning Review suggests spending $267 million on new buses, a garage and other equipment.

The extra money – about $69 million or one-third more than is currently spent – would put more buses on the roads, shorten passenger waiting times on many routes, and help buses move more expeditiously through busy streets. On major routes, service would be increased to every 10 minutes during peak periods and every 15 minutes at other times.

In suburban neighbourhoods, buses would start earlier – at 5:30 am – so that commuters can reach their jobs on time. Last trips would be pushed back to around 2 am, providing coverage for shift workers and late night bar patrons.

The report notes that, between 2006 and 2013, population growth in the city’s outlying suburban neighbourhoods is projected to be 60 per cent, while the overall population of the City of Edmonton will grow by 16 per cent. “ETS will be challenged to provide equitable service for these areas, with longer trip lengths and more diverse travel patterns,” it says. To handle the anticipated growth, the report projects that ETS needs 228 additional buses and 549,000 hours of service. That means a 27 per cent increase in buses and 29 per cent increase in the hours of service.

Once the south LRT is completed in 2010, ETS would provide more service to take residents of Mill Woods and Ellerslie to the station. Off-peak shuttles will run in the northwest industrial area, the south industrial area and the southeast industrial area.

The report also recommends the creation of a network of major north-south and east-west transit corridors with dedicated lanes and technologically advanced traffic signals to permit bus movements through traffic congestion. High priority corridors identified by the report include Stony Plain Road, 156th Street and 87th Avenue in the west, 97th Street in the north, and 83rd Street and 86th Streets from downtown into Mill Woods.

Transit advocates have been calling for such changes for decades but it apparently took record prices for oil and gas and a dawning political awareness to move them forward. Overlay the current increases in transportation costs with rapid economic growth, longer trip distances and increasing traffic congestion, and it’s no wonder record numbers of travellers are looking for cheaper, more efficient ways of getting around.

Councillor Ben Henderson is exactly right when he says that it will be much cheaper in the long term to build a transit system that works efficiently to move people around instead of adding more cars or building roads. The plan aspires to increase the number of rides system-wide to 88.8 million from 61.9 million within five years. That will mean an increase in system-wide revenue from $82 million to $117.9 million over the next five years, calculated in 2008 dollars.

ETS is indicating the improvements will be paid for, in part, by a combination of extra fares and taxes. Unless the senior orders of government step up with more funding for public transit, municipal taxpayers and riders will be on the hook for the costs.

The recent introduction of the universal pass (U-Pass) for post-secondary students has been a clear success, and will lead to significant ridership increase as additional institutions join on, and travel patterns mature, the report says. At the same time, expectations for quality transit service will increase, not just in the vicinity of campuses, but also throughout the city.

The South LRT extension will tap into significant transit markets. Yet, as the report puts it, “providing effective connections to the stations, and promoting transit use for the entire commuter trip will require careful planning and a commitment to high quality – fast and frequent – service connections.”

Over the longer term, the report recommends continued improvements in service frequency along major corridors, more use of express routes, and expanded late night service. The report notes that the city’s projections show a relatively stable population near the core of the city and significant growth on most of the fringe – particularly in the north, south and southeast.

But what those projections don’t take into account is the impact higher fuel prices are having on settlement patterns. As fuel prices climb, more citizens will choose to live in neighbourhoods closer to services and closer to where they work and play.

Overall, the ETS Ridership Growth Strategy and Planning Review is a good document, but it is missing some key perspectives. The report focuses almost entirely on commuters and gives short shrift to the seniors’ market, and fails to address the transit demands of empty-nester couples and older singles, whose travel patterns change as they leave the full-time workforce.

Experience in other cities like Toronto and New York shows that aging baby boomers are returning to public transit in big numbers, and many are parking their automobiles for the first time in 30 or 40 years. Finding ways to meet the needs of that growing market will grow ridership.

The report is also missing an urban design perspective. Transit corridors and LRT lines in other cities have been catalysts to drive densities of residential and retail development. It’s a smart growth strategy that will help make public transit more effective. That’s a role that Edmonton Transit should be playing as well.

Next week: Edmonton city council pulls the plug on electric trolleys.